


Chiromancy

by mystery_deer



Series: The Holmes Brothers Need Help [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, M/M, Past Child Abuse, conveniently straightforward dream sequences, lowkey found family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 20:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21124547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystery_deer/pseuds/mystery_deer
Summary: The Holmes brothers are sent into a slight spiral after a long-buried memory resurfaces





	1. The Cold

Mycroft was fully aware that he wasn’t a full, complete human being. He had known since he was a child, as sure as he knew of the blood that ran through his veins.

Most of his childhood memories, if he cared to reminisce, played out inside the family home. He could remember distinctly every route that lead to the kitchen while avoiding his parents’ room or the study. For the first seven years of his life that was all he needed. To eat, sleep and study and he only needed the two rooms for that.

Then Sherlock came along. 

When his parents brought home the squalling little thing he had immediately felt such intense love for it that he had had to excuse himself to his room and pace back and forth back and forth, jamming his hands together to avoid any outbursts.   
While they were together he prayed to anything that might listen to him that his brother not be born with the same affliction. He fell to his knees and prayed for his brother to be born whole.

“Mycroft?”   
Greg was lounging on the sofa, squinting at some piece of paper through his reading glasses. Mycroft stood at the sink.  
“Yes?”  
“Don’t take this the wrong way but are your parents...dead?”

Mycroft finished the last dish in silence before placing it neatly on the drying rack and toweling off his hands.   
“Why do you ask?” 

“Uh, I dunno.” He said, scratching at his five o’clock shadow. He could tell that he’d struck upon some sort of nerve at the sudden temperature drop. “Well, Sherlock...today he was on site for a case we’ve been working and he got...weird.”

“Weirder than usual?” Mycroft asked. He was across the room now, busying himself with little tasks. Greg watched, setting aside the paper. He thought of calling for him to sit down and talk but the other man worked as if he was being paid to rearrange the books and pick at bits of dust. 

“Yeah. John said that he couldn’t understand it, it was Parricide. Not even gruesome really just sad. Nothing I hadn’t seen before, there were some calls in from the neighbours about fighting but no one ever launched a formal complaint and the kid was in his 20’s so it wasn’t like we could cart him off to the state.”

“Mm.”

“And John was shaken up by it. Said he couldn’t understand doing something like that to family and Sherlock- Sherlock had been real quiet for awhile and he just snapped. He was all cold like you are sometimes and saying ‘Well isn’t that just lovely for you?’ before rushing off and saying that he didn’t want to investigate since it was open and shut.” 

Greg took the opportunity and lit a cigarette since Mycroft was busying himself with other things.   
“I told him it was open and shut and yet he still comes only to tell me again that it’s open and shut! Bastard.” He grumbles, blowing smoke up at the air. “Don’t know why he was so insistent on coming if he was just gonna-”

Mycroft appeared over him and took the cigarette, pressing it to his own lips. Greg felt his heart skip a beat as the other man blew a slow smoke ring over him. 

“Christ…” He breathed.

Mycroft’s lips tilted up and he replaced the cigarette after kissing him.

“Where’d this come from?” Greg asked, taking a shaky drag as Mycroft’s carefully styled black hair dipped lower and lower until he ended up elegantly between his legs.

“Nowhere.” He said, unzipping his jeans. “Nowhere.”

__________________

Mycroft knew it was a dream but the knowledge didn’t make it any easier. It only brought on another layer of the hellish trapped feeling that instead of jolting him awake, thrust him uneasily between waking and sleep like a man being waterboarded. No respite in either world.

His mother was scrubbing his hands with rough soap that seemed to be made of jagged stone. They wouldn’t lather pleasantly with bubbles when she did it, they just cut and bled and then she’d tsk and run the cuts under too-hot water and scold him to hold still hold still for God’s SAKE Mycroft!  
He tried to stay still, tried not to cry or jerk his hands away but they were on fire and his eyes stung from the pain and the smell of the soap and she wouldn’t stop until he did something wrong. Here it felt like years of waiting before his body tried to curl in on itself, tried to collapse and protect him but her hold was firm and she pulled him forward, kept his hands out towards her. Made sure there wasn’t any respite and kept her eyes on him as he wailed, she never looked away. 

“Mycroft.” She’d hiss and he could feel the steam coming off the stream of water before he even touched it. “Stay. Still.”

__________________

When he woke up it was morning as it always was. So he slipped out of bed, got dressed and went to work.

The nightmares persisted for several weeks until he eventually tired of being tired and so he began to take his sleeping pills again. 

He had taken them frequently after leaving for college, couldn’t sleep at all without them and would wake up with his hands aching from where he bit them or scratched at them or slammed them against the wall. 

The nightmares had slowly decreased and he felt the aftertaste of failure when he once again had to swallow down a pill to do something as simple as sleep.

He heard his mother’s voice, he’d been hearing it a lot lately. She hissed in his ear that normal people didn’t behave this way. She hadn’t raised him to-

He took another one and lay on top of the blankets, pretending to be asleep when Greg came in to prepare for bed. He felt a kiss being pressed to his cheek and the other man grumbling about how cold it was in the room.  
He focused on his breathing, letting the cold wash over him in pleasant waves. 

In...out.  
In...out.  
In…

He nearly burned the letter when he saw it sitting innocently outside his apartment. He recognized his father’s script.

He read it outside, letting his bag drop to the floor beside him. 

“Dear Mycroft,

I regret that the first correspondence we’ve had in the past few years had to be under such grave circumstances. We’ve missed you terribly but since you’ve insisted on continuing this petulance I’ve had no other option.

Your mother has died.  
Hopefully the tragedy of her death will allow us to see what’s important once again, family.

I will inform you of when and where the funeral will be taking place.”

He was kneeling in the bathtub, letter tossed onto the kitchen counter and water turned on to the hottest setting he could stand without immediately shirking away in cowardice. 

He watched the water, hands slowly cupping and reaching out reaching out reaching out-

“Myc?” He was jerked back harshly, body now half-in and half-out of the tub. The legs of his trousers were soaked and for a moment he felt fear overtake him so painfully that he thought he might be having a heart attack. It was his mother, he was sure. It was his mother. 

“Myc? Are you ok? What the hell is-? Jesus!” Greg exclaimed, flustered. He quickly shut off the water and helped his boyfriend out of the tub. He spoke more half-sentences as he led him out of the bathroom entirely and sat him down on the couch.

“What were you doing in there!? What happened?” Mycroft blinked and pressed his hands together. Greg was talking again. Too fast and he didn’t care to keep up. 

He thought of his mother, hiding somewhere in the flat. Waiting for him to let his guard down, observing him and pointing out all the things that he would punished for at a later, unknown date.

He could so something bad on Tuesday and be punished on Sunday. It didn’t matter, he was bad. He blinked. He was a horrible thing.

“Letter.” He finally whispered hoarsely, leading Greg to rush to the counter to read the letter he must have seen when he came in earlier. He could hear him, he mumbled every hard syllable.

“Oh God.” Greg said, nearly tripping in his hurry to be by Mycroft’s side once again. “Myc I’m so sorry.”

Mycroft made a noise, not sure what he was sorry for. That she’d died? That he was like this? For a moment he panicked that Gregory could finally see that he wasn’t full. That he was in pieces and not everything was there.   
It would be as if for months he had been trying to figure out why the puzzle he was putting together didn’t seem to be quite right and then he would discover finally that the fault didn’t lie with him, but with the puzzle itself. 

He curled up and held his hands close. 

Greg was surprisingly quiet for awhile before he sat down on the floor, back leaning against the couch.

“Myc, I’m gonna talk for a bit and you can listen if you want. I’m just gonna talk because I’m the kind of bloke who can’t shut up sometimes unless you tell me different.” He paused for a moment in case Mycroft wanted to tell him to shut up. Mycroft rocked silently.

“I didn’t know your ma. You never spoke about her and you don’t have to ever speak about her if you don’t want to. I didn’t know her but...I know Sherlock and...the way he responded to that crime scene awhile back? It was telling. I may not be the best damn detective in the world but I know a thing or two. I’ve seen those eyes a thousand times in and out the station.”

He paused and the two of them sat, mentally going over the picture that was being painted. Mycroft thought that Gregory would be a very good storyteller if he hadn’t become a detective. 

“What I’m trying to say is...fuck your parents.” Mycroft stopped rocking. That was...not what he had expected.

“If you hate ‘em then hate ‘em. If they hurt you then fuck ‘em. You don’t owe anyone anything just for bringing you into the world. That’s what my dad told me. He said not to let him get too cocky and I never did. He loved me with everything he had, the old bastard.” He turned slightly and looked at where he assumed the other man’s eyes were.

“Did she love you with everything she had?”

With that question Mycroft felt as if something inside him broke and he began to sob, grasping at his own hands hard enough to hurt until Greg wrenched them apart and held them. One hand in each of his, fingers intertwined. 

Mycroft tried to tell him through his tears that he would hurt him. He knew he would. But Greg just shook his head and grinned.  
“If you’re hurt then we’ll both feel it. That’s how it is.”

Mycroft breathed slowly and felt as if Greg had shown him some precious secret of the universe that he had no name for. The world contained nothing but the here and now and on the couch he was born anew from the words his words had weaved. 

That night he took his sleeping pill as usual but instead of leaving himself alone and open for an attack he waited for Gregory to begin his bedtime routine in order to do it in tandem with him.   
“It’s freezing in here.” He complained, wrapping the duvet around himself. Mycroft rolled his eyes. “I saw that!”

“A thousand pardons.” Mycroft grinned, raising his arm to allow Gregory a space to huddle up against him which he slotted into comfortably. “Tomorrow I’ll see about the heat.”


	2. The Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Mycroft take a long-overdue step forward

“Sherlock?” He was standing next to Mycroft, he blinked. The world was tilting sideways and his tongue felt thick. “Were you listening to me?”  
“...Yes.”  
“I said,” repeated Mycroft. They were standing outside whatever apartment he lived in that month and the acoustics made his voice echo. Everywhere he lived was the same anyway, chandeliers and carpeting. “Did you get the letter about mother?” 

“Yes.”

“Sherlock are you alright?” Mycroft bent over him without touching, peering down at him in disappointment. (when had he sat down?) He was never good enough, never had enough of a handle on himself. His brother's face betrayed nothing even though he was the one who- he was the one-  
Mycroft was a pot with a sealed lid and Sherlock was a tea kettle constantly on the edge of boiling. He wanted to drink, he wanted to get punched in the chest. “Shall I call John?” 

“No!”  
“No?”  
“....” He wanted to solve a case. He needed to do something big and brilliant and helpful to anyone. He needed to erase the undulating image of the mangled corpses and then his mother, neatly and newly deceased.

He threw up over his brother’s shoes and sobbed, pleaded for him to hold him.

Mycroft called John instead and abandoned his footwear, choosing to move to the furthest corner and calmly relay the address. 

“Is he suffering from withdrawal?”  
“No, he’s been clean for months now.” They were in a car and the closer to home the more he came back into himself. He pretended to sleep in the middle of them, all three of them able to sit together in the back of Mycroft’s car. 

“Is there anything that could be stressing him out?” John’s gaze fluttered over him for longer than he would allow if Sherlock’s eyes were open. He basked in the attention, heart warming when John took his hand.

“No.” Mycroft lied and Sherlock’s heart warmed for him as well. “I will alert you if I can think of anything. You’re here.”  
“What?”  
“You’re here.” Mycroft repeated. And then they were both outside, Sherlock hastily ‘woken up’ and dragged onto the street by John. 

“That man really gets on my nerves sometimes.”  
“Harsh words Doctor.” Sherlock teased, hurrying into the building as snow began to fall.  
________________

He was on the other side of the door, listening, glued to the spot. The wails filled the house and for a good portion of his childhood he had thought they were haunted and they were in a sense. 

He felt powerless and scared, he was scared to be standing there and knew that he should be downstairs waiting down there and not here staring at the wooden door listening. No one wanted him to listen but there he was and he could hear Mycroft begging then silent then begging again and then screaming and screaming and screaming and wanted to run. 

No, that wasn’t it. He wanted to reach out and open the door. He wanted to burst into the room and do something, to help him, but instead he felt himself crumpling down to the floor and blocking his ears so that he didn’t have to listen any longer.

________________

“Are you alright?” John asked once they were inside. “You’ve been acting weird ever since that case with the Robbinsons.”

“Ah, I apologize for that.” Sherlock said, unaware of what exactly he was talking about but eager to move past it.

“The Robbinsons,” John elaborated, knowing his partner well, “Were the family whose son-”

“I remember.” He said, taking off his coat and hanging it on the rack. “I remember John, thank you.”

He could see John mulling over whether or not to pursue the line of questioning to its conclusion even though it was sure to be unpleasant for them both. He got a sense of nostalgia and felt as if John were the school counselor, peering down at him with tired eyes and asking why he’d started another fight and if there were troubles at home. 

“I’m tired.” He said, half telling the truth as he slumped down into his favorite armchair. “And frustrated. There haven’t been many interesting cases lately.” He watched the fireplace as John set about closing the windows that they’d left open that morning due to the fact that something in the apartment had begun making itself known. (They had eventually discovered it to be a houseplant which, when in full bloom smelled like it was rotting so they’d tossed it into the hall for garbage collection.)

“All cases of course are interesting in some degree.” He continued. “Yet I’ve felt...empty. Like none of them have been a hefty solve, you understand me?”

“I do.” He said and Sherlock knew he meant it and he couldn’t help but smile. He had had few companions who truly understood him throughout his life. “It’s like if I were to suddenly take up occupation as a school nurse. I would be glad to be of service to the children but the scrapes and bumps of youth wouldn’t be challenge enough to satisfy me.”

Sherlock nodded excitedly and steepled his hands, closing his eyes. He’d never felt joy like he felt when with Watson.  
The image of his mother laid in a casket, arms crossed and surrounded by pure white flowers found its way beneath his eyelids again and he shot up out of his chair, heart pounding.

“What?” John asked, startled.

Ah, so he couldn’t even have a moment of joy anymore.

“I...realized I might have such a case! I’ll just be in my room.” He said, laughing airily and rushing forward to where their rooms were. He felt his knees growing weak already. 

“I’ll just be-” and he collapsed to the floor.

John watched as his partner went down in pieces. It was as if he were being tugged down by gravity’s loving arms. First his knees buckled then he crouched down shakily, arm outstretched as he reached for the door handle, and then he was kneeling and then he was on the floor.

It looked deliberate enough that for a moment he just stood there watching him breathe before he realized fully what had happened and he rushed to his side. 

“Sherlock!” He cried, moving the man so that he was on his back instead of bent over his knees. “Sherlock!?”  
________________

The vase had broken and his hands were bleeding from the glass.  
He had knocked it over when playing and seen the shell-shocked look on Mycroft’s face and regretted it with every fiber of his being.

The vase had shattered immediately before either of them had even registered it and Sherlock had immediately thrown himself down with it, grabbing at the pieces and telling Mycroft it was ok it was ok it was ok he’d clean it up and he’d tell mother it was his fault he’d tell her and he wouldn’t get in trouble!

Mycroft had only moaned and flailed his arms about, grasping at his face and moaning whywhywhywhy Sheeerlock I told you I TOLD you not to run I TOLD you not to run whywhywhy couldn’t you LISTEN

Sherlock was being pulled up from the ground and mother was inspecting his wounds and her eyes didn’t register that he was speaking at all, that he was pleading with her that it was an accident and he was the one who knocked it over and then her eyes were on Mycroft and then they were both gone and Sherlock couldn’t hear anything but far off water.

He stared at his bleeding hands, the pain pulsed and it was his only company in that blank, nightmarish hall.

________________

“He had many fainting spells in our youth.” Mycroft was saying as Sherlock floated back to the top of his body, fitting himself in beneath the skin. “It was never anything serious enough to necessitate a trip to the hospital, besides. He has you, Doctor.”

“I’m alright John.” Sherlock said, blinking slowly. “As he says.”

John glared at Mycroft as he drew Sherlock close to him and Mycroft looked at him with the polite impassivity of a bank teller or pharmacist. 

He growled and turned away from him to focus on Sherlock. “What’s going on?” He asked and when the detective opened his mouth he fixed him with a fierce stare that made him snap it shut. “So help me God Sherlock, what’s REALLY going on.”

There was a moment of silence as Mycroft stood up and gracefully blended into the background. The two of them forgot him at once and their world narrowed pleasantly once again.

“My mother has died.” Sherlock said and it was the first time he’d said it out loud. He’d imagined the moment of his mother died to be a much more dramatic affair. He’d spent many nights thinking angrily about all he’d say to her in those final moments, of how he’d finally get her to look at and see him. To see all the pain she’d caused the both of them and how she would never be able to make it up. 

She would NEVER be able to make it up, he thought. And for some reason this opened up a pit of sorrow in him. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” John asked in a soft voice.  
“I didn’t want her to be.” He said, the words being news to him as well. “I hated her and hate her more than...but...she’s gone now.” He said slowly, looking up at the ceiling as if the mysteries of the universe were laid out on it. 

“I never had a mother.” He said, eyes watering. “And now I’ll never have a mother.”

A door closed and they both turned to see that Mycroft had made his exit.

“Hell.” John hissed, standing with his body aimed at the door. “Did he know?”

“He knew, he told me.”

“No stress my ass, lying son of…” He paused and Sherlock wondered if it was for his benefit. He felt a bit light headed still and began drinking the fruit juice that either John or his brother had set on the crowded nightstand. “Should I go after him?”

“No, he’ll be fine.” Sherlock said, lying down once again. He chuckled lightly. “And even if he won’t be, what could you do? What could any of us do.”

________________

A week later there was a brisk voicemail from Mycroft telling him that the funeral would be at the end of the month and that they should talk.

It was purposefully unclear as to what about.

Sherlock responded to this by showing up to the last apartment he’d seen his brother living in and standing in front of the door until like magic the elevator doors opened and Mycroft stepped into the hall, stalking towards him with an unreadable expression.

“I didn’t mean right away.” He said as a greeting, snapping his umbrella closed. Sherlock hadn’t grabbed his on the way out and had arrived soaked to the bone. He turned to look at his brother. 

“How do you feel about it?” He asked and Mycroft didn’t blink. He held his eyes open and smiled. Sherlock stared. He knew that Mycroft’s hands were gripping the handle of his umbrella so that they wouldn’t grasp at his face in anxiety.

“How I feel about it is immaterial, I’m not the one having fainting spells.”

“No.” He admitted. “But you haven’t been sleeping.”

“I often go without sleep. My job keeps me busy.” Mycroft said and Sherlock took a step forward, shaking off the veiled insults without pausing to consider them. They were nothing but traps being laid out, paths to pursue to keep him from what he really wanted to go down.

“You’re not sleeping because of mother. I can tell. I can tell by the way you just flinched when I said her name and how you can’t stand to look at me without anxiety just like when we were children and I can tell because you’re my brother and I love you.” He said, backing Mycroft into the wall and clutching at his coat. 

“I can tell Mycroft! I can tell so why can’t you just tell me what you feel for ONCE!?” He screamed, anger mounting in him. “For ONCE let me in!”

Mycroft had stopped looking at him the moment he’d been cornered and the smile had vanished from his face. Instead his eyes were trained on the window at the end of the hall which gave a view of nothing but the rain.

“...How is John?” He asked.  
“What?” Sherlock breathed.  
“How is John handling all this?”

Sherlock slowly let his arms fall to his sides. He stumbled backwards and leaned his body against the opposing wall. 

“John?” He breathed again, feeling on the precipice of something. “He...he hasn’t had a good relationship with his parents either. But he says he’d feel sad if they died. I asked him, that’s why he told me. He says he’d feel sad if almost anyone died, he learned that in the war.”

He could feel John Watson standing with him in the hall, a ghostly presence in his fatigues and hollowed out eyes saying “So many men died out there that it seemed at times that they were all just numbers and names numbers and names but that’s how they get you. That’s how they make it so you fade out and die from shock. During the war I never found a dog tag that was just a number and I wept over every grave I saw.”

“Gregory’s family was good to him.” Mycroft said. “He threatened our father. Said he’d, ‘kick his ass’ quote unquote.”

Sherlock laughed, imagining the gruff detective inspector running up to their elderly, respectable father and knocking him to the ground. 

“You’ve got a keeper.”

“I know.”

They both looked at each other a moment and in that moment a before invisible tension was broken. They both sagged and laughed softly and walked towards one another. Once they reached each other they embraced. 

“I’m not going to any funeral.” Sherlock said. “I can’t, or I’ll reach into that damned casket and pull her out and scream abuse at her.”

Mycroft let out a shaky exhale of amusement as he let go of his brother and led him down the hall to the elevator.

“I only left you the message so as not to be accused of being a ‘lying son of a bitch.’” He said, stepping into the elevator and smiling brightly as Sherlock looked at him, taken aback but happy. He wanted to see that expression every day for the rest of his life he thought as the metal doors closed and he could only hear his brother shout an expletive before rushing to the stairwell to catch him in the lobby.


End file.
